Generic Weekend Title

Generic Weekend Title


Good evening, mortals.

Now, I don't know if you know this, but I'm on a course for Computer Games Design.

One of the major parts of this course is learning how to use a little-known coding program called Flash Professional. I joke, of course, you've all heard of Flash, it's used all over the damn place.

Flash, however, is hard. It is annoyingly hard, needlessly so, in my opinion. I also think that 3D modelling software is awkward, but I can understand that it's the easiest method I can think of. With Flash, however, things are just unnessecarilly difficult.

I've used a version of GameMaker before (the free version), and that was so easy; you know what the icons do and where to put them, and you're fine. Everything's very easilly laid out and labelled, so you know exactly what's going on all the time, and you can pick it up and know what you're doing within five minutes. Flash, on the other hand; I have no idea what's going on with it. The tutor (a gentleman named Chris Janes ("Hi, Chris!")) has been trying to make us understand by walking us through making a basic game with Flash, and two things stick out about those lectures:

• Why isn't any of this going in, where is he, how did he get so far ahead of me, why can't I just listen?
• I could do what's taken him an hour in Flash, in about ten minutes in GameMaker.

I understand that drag-and-drop tools such as GameMaker are more limited, but holy Hell, why does Flash need to be THIS complex?

Here's an example; I was reading a book and doing some tutorials about Flash today to try and catch up, and this is the code required to display the words "Hello World!" onto a screen (a relatively simple task, I think you'll agree):

package  {

import flash.display.*;

import flash.text.*;

public class HelloWorld extends MovieClip {

public function HelloWorld() {

// constructor code

var myText:TextField = new TextField();

myText.text = "Hello World!";

addChild(myText)

}

}

}

THAT'S JUST TO MAKE "Hello World!" APPEAR ON THE SCREEN!!! What even?

But yeah, that's been my Sunday today. Learning to do that.

Otherwise, it's been another slow weekend for work; tomorrow I have the day pretty much off; I'll get some work done then, probably more stuff toward the group project, and maybe more Flash (fun!). I will also be reading and postng notes about Rob's reading for the week.

Tonight, if I remember, I'll try to get some dialogue done for the characters I'm creating for the Introduction to Design Methods lectures. Phil Jackson, my previous personal tutor and tutor for this and the 3D modelling lectures, is leaving us. Apparently Sony has something we don't. Nah, but we're sorry to see him go. Looking forward to meeting Mike Green, our new Design Methods tutor.

Well, I think that's it for now. I know I was going to mention something else in here, but whatever, I'm doing another blog tomorrow, and I can always edit this one.

And, of course, Hail Emperor.